[This one started as a "strictly-speaking, not about social media" entry, but I think I figured out a way to tie it back.]
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about television. Nothing, I’m sure, that hasn’t already been done to death (say, by the TV/pop culture eggheads up at Syracuse), but outside of rare occasions, I just don’t feel the same kind of urgency about appointment television — at least, not for its own sake.
Appointment television has been under attack for a while. Outside of the competing demands of other media (like, the Internet), we have a whole host of time- and place-shifting tools these days. Timeshifting is nothing new — we’ve had VCRs for 30 years — but DVRs have just made things so effortless. On top of that, throw in, Hulu, iTunes, BitTorrent, the near-instant availabilty of entire seasons on DVD, or whatever other TV on-demand technology you employ, and appointment television just seems so… obsolete. Quaint, even.
When you can watch what you want, when you want, on your own schedule, I think the remaining benefits of sticking with appointment television are:
* You can participate in your normal conversations and social networks without having to worry about dodging spoilers. If you’re a DVR person, the spoiler danger zone might only be a few hours or days, but if you’re a “wait for the DVD” person, that could be months of wearing blinders.
* Outside of whatever intangible psychic benefit you gain from being “first on your block” to see something, you can also be part of that community of first conversations — up to and including realtime conversations. If you aren’t keeping your television appointments, you miss out on the chance to be in that group.
For example, I’m a few weeks behind on 24, which means I can’t participate in the We Love DC blog’s live coverage of 24 (they do a particular focus on nitpicking all the errors in DC geography and obvious LA filming locations).
Something similar happened on Battlestar Galactica nights — being Friday nights, I’d tape it more often than not, but by doing so, I missed out on forum chats, where you’re part of a community reacting to the same things at the same time. (Where you can see everyone saying “Oh, snap!” at the same time. You can go through afterwards, but it’s reading a transcript — you miss out on the contemporaneousness of it.)
Anyway, it kind of goes to the question of what people will pay for or shift their schedules around for — early access, and the built-in community of first-run fans.
But how do you get people to watch a show, let alone pay for one, sight unseen? That’s kind of what we’re seeing on HBO / Showtime series — subscribers get it first; if the buzz builds, it migrates to non-premium channels and then to DVD. For example, I don’t do premium channels, but based on community interactions and recommendations, I’ll probably buy Generation Kill on DVD this week (it’s on sale).
Maybe there’s a hybrid pricing model — premium for first access, leveraging that community of ardent (that is, deranged) fans, followed by a robust window for free broadcasts and limited archives to build mass, then another premiums for fully on-demand archives or whole seasons.
Anyway, is being a part of a first-run community or not having to worry about spoilers in your Twitterstream enough to make you keep your television appointments — or even pay to be first? Can online community save appointment television? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
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